So, I've been on the Wellbutrin generic since last November and for the most part it was working really well. Smoking habit disappeared overnight, mood was balanced, and I felt more motivated.
Here's the thing. I went back on the medication because of a woman. Not because she asked me to. Because she DROVE me to. I really hate to admit that, but it's true. There was a woman, who I was just so crazy about (hah!), but the stress was driving me to self-medicate. Smoking, drinking most nights, I was a couple steps away from functional alcoholism. The stress. I felt such a powerful thing for her, but it wasn't mutual.
Yeah.
I'd been seeing her off and on for almost a year. She'd already explained that she didn't see us getting serious, but we kept seeing each other anyway. But that had changed the boundaries. I went out of town for a convention and hooked up with an old friend, who sold me a piece of jewelry to give the woman back home. The friend knew about her, but the woman back home never found this out. I was, foolishly, holding on to the hope that I could change her mind about us. But then we were at a goth club, invited seperately, didn't know if the other was gonna be there. I tried to coordinate so we could go together, but she wasn't answering. And she met a guy there, somebody who she'd had a thing for a year ago, and they left together.
I had no moral high ground to judge, and she apologized right away begging me not to hate her, but that hurt me. That hurt me a lot. I stopped talking to her for a while. And THAT'S when the self-medicating began.
The woman and I kept running into each other at cons, slowly started talking again. For my part I was trying to be friends again. I suspect for her, she never thought anything had changed. We addressed that night somewhat, as much as was comfortable. But the damage was done, and I lost a sense of trust and comfort from her. I tried seeing other people, even slept with a couple other women, though that went nowhere. Then we were at another con in November, and ended up spending an entire evening together, talking, having drinks, enjoying each other's company. And she explained, I don't know why, how she had spent every night since that night at the club working, no social life of her own. I guess that was to let me know she was available. We unofficially started seeing each other again after that, but I was still self-medicating. That's when I decided to go back on actual medication.
There was another reason to that, actually. When she told me that we couldn't get serious, the main reason she cited was she was afraid that her own psychiatric issues and mine would feed off each other, amplifying and making it worse. She was right. Damn her, she was right. I don't know whether they made her mental state any worse, but mine had been severely aggravated. Taking medication seemed a way to counter that argument.
Since then, well, she still spent most nights working. Getting together was hard to schedule, but when it worked it worked really fucking well. I didn't see her nearly enough for my part, but she never told me to stop trying. And it's not as though there were any better, saner alternatives. The thing about dating within your geeky community, most of the single girls are single because they're crazy. This woman, for all her issues, was the least crazy. Let THAT sink in. As for where we are now, it's been months since we last got together. In this on-again/off-again masochism tango, it seems we're currently off. There's a conversation coming on the horizon, one I've been dreading for a while, but necessary nonetheless.
Where was I going with this? Well, with no real improvement in things, I'm unsatisfied. And that's raising my stress, and aggravating my issues, and the medication is losing its efficacy. Not drinking as much, but picking up a cigarette a little more often. And on top of things, it's now harder for me to open up. I don't know whether there is a stronger dosage available. Questions to pose to my doc.
On a side note, the goth club in question closed down. I'd spent many a night wishing it had burned down, so it would never remind me of that humiliating and painful night. But closing and being replaced with a gay dance club? Eh, close enough.
